teenagers (those that have the training of their parents, and want to go further)

Don't teenagers already know everything? If you don't believe that, just ask one . (Speaking from long experience here: 3 adult children, each of whom was a former teen; 7 grandchildren who have pass through those years; 1 grandchild just now learning of his vast knowledge)

Hi Jack;

Yes, that is so true. I should have placed the teenagers beyond the senior (seasoned).

You are blessed. So far, I have 3 grandchildren (the oldest being 5) and 7 adults (we are done).

I hope this doesn't come out wrong, but I'm having trouble getting excited about this at the moment.

The blog article is written in the present tense as if it's available now, but has no real details about how to get it, what exactly is available, and how much. If it were written as more of a "it's coming in the future" article, I could understand the lack of details. But that's not how I read it.

I'd like to get excited about this. I really would. But, I wish a sentence or two would have been used to at least give us an availability date if nothing more.

Sounds like a fantastic idea. Only wish my lectures at university had been available like this! I could have concentrated on the lecture content rather than note taking. I think it has a lot of potential. Price point will be interesting as I have the Greek and Hebrew videos I bought while on discount. Not sure I could have afforded them at the full price.

Is this a replacement to AM Bible Courseware; something similar to the "Charles Stanley Institute for Christian Living" they once offered online; or a full fledged seminary courseware engine inside Logos?

Logos Mobile Ed is not an online course but rather a downloadable "curriculum resource," like a book. The difference is that this particular kind of "book" has the ability to initiate a video stream and also features on screen testing that accepts reader input. This new type of curriculum resource has attached, a Faithlife community note shared with everybody else who acquires the resource. The course becomes a permanent addition to your library. There is no need to ever forget this course content. It never goes away. It is searchable and links to the rest of your library.

Initially courses will be seminary level courses targeted at people who's circumstances make it impractical or impossible to obtain a traditional seminary education. Could the courses be used for small groups or church institutes? Sure, why not?

The courses will sell like Logos books as singles or bundles. There are about 100 courses in design and production. The prices are based on our cost to produce the product, but like all Logos products they represent a major savings over their traditional product format and they represent a new level of convenience and interactivity within the Logos ecosystem.

When we make make the pre-publication offer there will be a web page with sample videos that illustrate the product.

While we have accepted the role of curriculum designers, we have not become a degree granting institution. During the the past year of production word of our project has drifted into academic arena to the extent that several schools have asked us about incorporating these courses into their own distance ed programs. This will probably happen, offering people a path toward degree programs. Each school could add their own additional requirements and assignments. Our own focus is on education for people who just want or need to learn more. While our suggested course plans might look like an M. Div.program, they are not degree programs but rather opportunities to learn seminary/Bible college level materials in the Logos environment.

As long as I am explaining things, I should add two important design philosophies in our courses. That is "usefulness for teaching and preaching" and "the skills to do further study on your own."

As we have flown in professors from various schools we have stressed to them the need to make the material applicable to teachers and preachers. Demonstrate how the information can be communicated to others. The second task is highly specialized. That is to learn how to apply your Logos skills to the material you are now studying. Learn to dig out the information just like the teacher did before you. So we have created a whole series of context based lessons which will teach you to use Logos for theology, church history, hermeneutics, etc. One of our forum menbers, Mark Barnes has become a major contributor in this area of practical application.

When a professor asks us to describe the program we say, "Think of this as vocational training for ministry." We expect that our users will already be serving in ministry and their desire for education is real and practical.

Good stuff Dale, I like what I am hearing. If you have not done so, I may have missed it, partner with schools, to offer accredited courses. Say six hours towards a MA in Theology, or OT, etc..

The next step is to work with publishers so that if a text is required reading or a must when researching a topic (think ICC) the user can rent it for X time. That way everyone will have access to a professional library. After X time, the resource automatically locks in their library, unless they take it out again, up to Y times.

Good stuff Dale, I like what I am hearing. If you have not done so, I may have missed it, partner with schools, to offer accredited courses. Say six hours towards a MA in Theology, or OT, etc..

The next step is to work with publishers so that if a text is required reading or a must when researching a topic (think ICC) the user can rent it for X time. That way everyone will have access to a professional library. After X time, the resource automatically locks in their library, unless they take it out again, up to Y times.

I agree on the part about accredited courses. Being able to complete some of my seminary training through Logos would be excellent. Logos itself doesn't need to be the "online institute", but if it can partner with a wide range of its institutes to allow some of the courses to go toward college credit, that'd be great.

I like the idea about "rentable" textbooks as well. Have them available for rent during the course, then have them disappear from the library when the course is complete. Then if we want permanent access to the book later on, purchase it.

I wonder about the...well...the OBVIOUS. The fact that Logos isn't just going to be "tagging" and indexing current resources, but (at least from the sound of it) creating content. I realize that on some level they have done this in some ways already, but this could get to be a mine field of theological disputation. Now, I don't have a problem with that, but I sorta thought Logos did.

Does the student have sufficient resources to accommodate the tags and links? When we release the official pre-pub we will outline the basic assumptions that underlie the whole effort. One of objectives is to "not color outside the lines" as my mother used to say. On the one hand we want to create an education environment sufficient to the task of education on the subject under study. This means that the user must have a sufficiently large Logos library to accommodate all the links related to the course material since in our system there are no text books, but rather an entire library. Once we define the "lines" or boundaries our instructional designers are not allowed to link outside a designated standard book collection for primary links and not outside our available Logos resources for advanced and supplemental links. This means you do not have to get in your car and go to a theological library to complete any assignment. You may want to order additional resources for subject that are of great interest to you. In some specialty areas for example counseling the course designer may require additional titles as course requirements, much as any professor would do in a campus environment. In any case all this is known before you decide to invest in a particular course of study.

Now as to the mine field of theological disputation. Our course designers create all the links based on course perspective and the actual word by word text of the lecturers. They are naturally going to link to compatible resources to the points of the lecture. Choose a course with professors with whom you agree and there will be very little to dispute with the attendant links.

Our goal is to offer multiple courses from various theological perspectives. For those who desire it, there will also be courses offered that highlight multiple perspectives from adherents to those respective positions. We are facilitating the learning process, not embracing a single viewpoint.The links always go to background and support material for the current course perspective.

A good start on tagging/linking would be what constitutes the Scholar's Library in L5 (Bronze?). Many seminaries require at least Scholar's/Bronze as the base Logos package for seminary-level courses (if they purchase higher, then great).

That would be the ideal starting point on tagging/linking resources. Most participants "should" have at least all the books in that collection if they're wanting to go full-fledged into seminary-level material.

Ah, gee ! The courses I teach are quiet for the summer, I saw this potentially meaty learning opportunity pushed on the Logos software home page, and I got excited about some deeper learning now that the summer is relatively free. Then, what ....? I have the same questions as Erwin Stull plus is there a timeline when this becomes available ?

Logos Mobile Ed is not an online course but rather a downloadable "curriculum resource," like a book. The difference is that this particular kind of "book" has the ability to initiate a video stream and also features on screen testing that accepts reader input. This new type of curriculum resource has attached, a Faithlife community note shared with everybody else who acquires the resource. The course becomes a permanent addition to your library. There is no need to ever forget this course content. It never goes away. It is searchable and links to the rest of your library.

Initially courses will be seminary level courses targeted at people who's circumstances make it impractical or impossible to obtain a traditional seminary education. Could the courses be used for small groups or church institutes? Sure, why not?

The courses will sell like Logos books as singles or bundles. There are about 100 courses in design and production. The prices are based on our cost to produce the product, but like all Logos products they represent a major savings over their traditional product format and they represent a new level of convenience and interactivity within the Logos ecosystem.

When we make make the pre-publication offer there will be a web page with sample videos that illustrate the product.

While we have accepted the role of curriculum designers, we have not become a degree granting institution. During the the past year of production word of our project has drifted into academic arena to the extent that several schools have asked us about incorporating these courses into their own distance ed programs. This will probably happen, offering people a path toward degree programs. Each school could add their own additional requirements and assignments. Our own focus is on education for people who just want or need to learn more. While our suggested course plans might look like an M. Div.program, they are not degree programs but rather opportunities to learn seminary/Bible college level materials in the Logos environment.

Thanks Dale; This is what I was looking for, and your answers have wet my appetite. I am looking forward to investigating the courses further once the project progresses.

Ah, the timeline. Well I don't want to avoid the question but I must be somewhat vague. There are some final details in the interface programming to make sure you can easily find the course ware without having to search for it among hundreds or in come cases thousands of books in your library. This means we can't deliver it before it interface features are ready for inclusion in a scheduled software update, which means sometime this summer. The courses themselves are all different states of completion as will be the case for the next year or two as we expand our list. I am very excited. I have just been watching an OT lecture by Dr. Mark Futato of Reformed Theological Seminary. It is great. In a best case scenario I think we could be delivering courses at the end of July. After that we can add courses every month just like books. We have been recording professors and designing courses for nearly a year already. We are also doing a new Morris Proctor academic course in the Mobile Ed format and we are coming out with a totally new Learn to Use Greek and Hebrew set with many new features. There is a lot going on around here.